ETD: 872 Merchant Accounts; How consumers find you; The luxury
of outdoor living
E-Tailer's Digest
etd_post at gapent.com
Tue Mar 29 12:52:19 GMT 2005
E-Tailer's Digest --- Everything for the Retailer
Issue #0873 March 29, 2005
George Matyjewicz, Moderator mailto:georgem at gapent.com
Published by: GAP Enterprises, Ltd. http://www.etailersdigest.com
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CONTENTS
[1] Greetings
[2] Merchant Accounts
[3] How consumers find you
[4] The luxury of outdoor living
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[1] Greetings.
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Hi All:
I hope everybody enjoyed their holiday weekend for those who celebrated
Purim and those who celebrated Easter.
I know there are many parts of the world where Easter extends from Holy
Thursday through Easter Monday and all business is closed. When we were in
Tortola we were surprised to see the major banks closed (we dealt with
banks daily).
Today we have a continuation of the topic of how consumers find you. List
member Martha Retallick offers her views on this topic, and I added some
comments.
As part of the retail/etail experience we need to accept credit
cards. Today I started a discussion on merchant accounts. How about
sharing your experience with this needed process?
List member Pam Danziger shares her expertise with the luxury market
outdoors. Apparently we don't have any more room indoors, so now the
luxury market is moving outdoors. Good reading.
Tell us about your business which will remain for posterity at
our "Members: Who Are You?" site. This is a courtesy to our members who
contribute to our forum, and not merely a way to advertise for
free. Anything to do with the retail world, i.e., supplier, retailer,
consulting, etc. http://etailersdigest.com/resources/members/index.htm And
we have a form there for you to tell us about you. As I said when I first
proposed this idea, we have "known" each other for a long time, yet we
often don't know anything about each other. So, tell us who you are and
what you do.
Now, let's get to everything for the retailer.
Sincerely
George Matyjewicz, PhD
Chief Global Strategist, GAP Enterprises, Ltd.
mailto:georgem at gapent.com
http://www.etailersdigest.com
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[2] Merchant Accounts
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Many of us are becoming retailers/etailers for the first time. One of the
issues we face is accepting credit cards. How do we become a
merchant? What can we sell and not sell? How do we protect ourselves from
fraudulent credit card users?
Obviously the first step is obtaining a merchant account which allows you
to take credit cards and have the funds deposited into your account. You
can contact your bank to see if your merchant account can be used with
online purchases. If you don't have a merchant account, you need to
research. Some storefront software provides a link to merchant
accounts. What do list members use?
Along with the merchant account is the ability to accept the cards
online. We all have purchased online, and see how the credit card process
works. There is a secured server where we enter our card number. The
number can either be verified immediately in real-time, or verified later,
where you are notified of the verification via e-mail.
Secured servers are mandatory for accepting credit cards. You need a
secured site - SSL - Secured Sockets Layer, a protocol that transmits your
communications over the Internet in an encrypted form. SSL ensures that the
information is sent, unchanged, only to the server you intended to send it
to. You can tell the site is secured when you see the lock at the bottom
of the screen or when you see https as part of the URL.
As part of the online process, you also need a way to enter the credit card
manually. Some people feel more comfortable mailing you the information,
rather than recording it online. For those people you need to be able to
enter their credit card information.
Can some list members share their experiences with merchant accounts and
the acceptance of credit cards?
George
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[3] How consumers find you
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Here's a news flash from the Real World. Most consumers spend a lot less
time on the Internet than the members of the E-Tailer's Digest e-mail
discussion list.
In fact, many of them have jobs that, get this, don't even require the use
of computers, and if they did, the computers aren't connected to the Internet.
They spend a great deal more time watching television, and, thus, are much
more dependent on TV to tell them about new products and services.
And remember word of mouth? As in, one person talking face-to-face with
another? That's still a very powerful concept out there in the Real World.
Hence, it's important that we not get too Internet-centric in our promotions.
Martha Retallick, "The Passionate Postcarder"
http://www.PostcardMarketingSecrets.com
+++ [Moderator's Comments] +++
Martha, I hope you are not saying that the 1.07 billion people online don't
shop? If you are an e-tailer, you better promote online. And if you
have a brick & mortar store, you need to understand that people research
online.
According to Forrester Research, net-influenced sales represent three times
as much revenue as online sales. In other words, people prefer to research
products and prices online and then buy offline. This hasn't changed since
the beginning of the Internet. In January, 1998 I was a keynote speaker at
a retail trade show in Dallas and reported on how a retailer got a new
customer that she never saw before, because of Internet research.
http://gapent.com/media/seminars/dallas.htm
Apparently, almost 60 per cent of wired Europeans say that they shop across
channels because they want to see or touch products before buying them. But
many are also worried about the cost of delivery, poor fulfillment and what
they see as the difficulties and security risks of buying online.
There are many articles available as to why people buy online. One
entitled "5 Reasons Why People Buy Online" states:
1) They See Something That's Not Readily Available Offline
2) They Know and Like the Person Selling the Merchandise
3) It's Easy to Buy Online
4) They're Emotionally Charged to Buy the Item
5) Your Shop Allows For Impulse Buys
So, if we are etailers, we need to learn how to attract part of that 1
billion audience.
Here's the URLs for some of these resources.
http://www.insiderreports.com/storypage.asp_Q_ChanID_E_WB_A_StoryID_E_20000350
http://www.clickz.com/stats/sectors/geographics/article.php/5911_151151
http://www.bcentral.co.uk/issues/marketing/ebusiness/howmany.mspx#top
George
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[4] The luxury of outdoor living
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Home has been an obsession for luxury consumers for the past twenty
years. But after repeatedly decorating, redecorating, remodeling then
redecorating their homes once again, luxury consumers are turning their
attention elsewhere. Now they are powered by a new energy to connect with
the outside world.
Luxury consumers, those top 25 percent of U.S. households based upon
income, are just not spending like they used to on home. Rather there is
strong indication that when luxury home spending goes down, spending on
experiential luxuries, such as travel, dining, spas, goes up. Likewise
when home spending rises, spending on experiential luxuries goes down. In
effect luxury home marketers are competing directly with experiential
luxury purveyors when it comes to grabbing share of the luxury consumers’
budget.
Outdoors is the ‘new’ indoors in home decorating.
One way the new passion for connecting is reflected by luxury consumers is
by focusing on the outdoor living spaces of their home. Unity Marketing
sees the outdoor living areas as the new home decorating frontier and a
place that savvy luxury home marketers should explore for future growth.
Today, the outdoor living market has expanded to encompass far more than
just gardening, while gardening remains an important aspect of outdoor
living. Outdoor living is a lifestyle, not just a hobby, and savvy luxury
marketers that embrace this new lifestyle trend will get ahead of the
dramatic growth curve that is coming.
For more on Luxury Tracking, see
http://www.unitymarketingonline.com/reports2/luxury/luxury3.html
Pam Danziger, President
Unity Marketing
Author of Let Them Eat Cake: Marketing Luxury to the Masses — as well as
the Classes. (Dearborn Trade Publishing, 2005! )
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